WMG / Psychonauts 2

Lili will be playable as in a tag-team with Raz

To step up from the first game, and probably to in more ways than one make up for Lili being a D.I.D, along with fleshing out more story to their new relationship, Lili with joining Raz in his newest, craziest and possibly most complicated adventure yet, which will include facing the source of his family curse. In Psychonauts 2, we'll get to see Raz and Lili tag-team to face various problems and challenges, which will require them and the player to fully utilize their respective abilities, while also covering for their respective shortcomings.

• Possibly related to the above, the game will feature a two-player mode, with one player as Raz, and the other as Lili.
• Jossed. Lili has even less screentime than the first game, and only really works with Raz in the final mental level of the game.

The events of Psychonauts to Psychonauts 2 are connected

Doesn't it seem like the events of Psychonauts, Rhombus of Ruin and 2 are happening in a sort of rapid succession. Oleander's insanity-induced plot, Truman's kidnapping and attempted theft of Raz's brain by Loboto on the orders of a mysterious mastermind, the Psychonauts' Dragon making drastic and amoral changes in the organization's direction, also "Raz soon uncovers sinister things at work in the shadows of Psychonauts headquarters, including double agents and evils of the past. Raz's own family history plays a pivotal part in the story, and Raz must confront the roots of the curse placed on his family once and for all. And also deal with this whole 'girlfriend' term and what it really means. :)" With his family involved, maybe certain people besides the Psychonauts are keeping an eye on him and them for whatever reason, but it may also include Raz' family having many enemies and Raz' psychic talents. What if the plots of Psychonauts and RoR were just distractions for a much bigger plot in 2? Something this big he's going to need Lili's help for 1. she's a highly trained PSI-cadet with skills to back Raz up in various problems and challenges are a case like this are sure to bring 2. since as a cadet, she isn't compromised or slowed down by the system, and her knowledge and connection with the Psychonauts is sure to help Raz do the same, and so on.

Possible plot-points

• Raz, a gifted ten-year-old psychic boy, as a Psychonaut.
  • It's possible that there going to be an uproar of Razputin being hired as a Psychonaut. How will the higher-ups feel about it? It possible that Raz will have a lot of proving himself to do, as the new guy once again.
    • Confirmed: Not an uproar, but Hollis makes it clear just because Ford said he was a Psychonaut, to her, he's just an intern, and Raz has to earn becoming... a Junior Agent.
• Raz and Lili.
  • Razputin, new Psychonaut. Lili highly experienced Psi-cadet and daughter of Psychonaut Grand Head. Not only will things be weird between the two, but also with the organization and its leader.
    • Jossed.

D'artagan will officially appear.

Technology has likely advanced enough that they can render his awesome hat!

• And he will be a rival character, possibly a member of the Galochio family that cursed Raz's family to die in water.
• Jossed.

The Aquato curse was deliberately ironic on the Galochios' behalf

Several people have commented on Raz's last name being ironic because of his Super Drowning Skills. Psychonauts 2 will reveal through backstory that the Aquato family used to have a strong affinity for water in some way, and this was deliberately used against them by the Galochios to give them a truly unbearable curse.

• Confirmed Sort of. Turns out it was never the Galochios or any other Grulovians for that matter. It is a long story but it was actually Ford behind the "curse" and it was never a curse at all. It was all part of a complex plot to hide the truth of Maligula's whereabouts and that included giving the Aquatos a fear of water through hypnosis. The hand of Galochio actually aids Raz in moving out of the water he and Nona fall into after finally sealing Maligula for good, and gives him a friendly wave. It's unclear if it was Nona's subconscious control over water helping her Grand-nephew that one time, or if Raz himself in a naturally gifted innate Hydrokinetic, and was manifesting the water to attack himself out of being into the 'curse' too deeply, which, now he knows the truth and has made peace with his fear, is starting to manifest in beneficial control over water to rival Nona's own.

The Big Bad will be a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds driven by paranoia and OCD

The funny initial preparations will turn out to be the plan of a person who is utterly terrified of everything he doesn't control down to the letter, being obsessed with protocol. This makes him The Chessmaster, but in truth his plan to Take Over the World is because he's terrified of it due to his Dark and Troubled Past convincing him anything unaccounted for wants to hurt him. This ties into his Mental World, which will be a death trap that is only beaten when Raz and Lili convince his superego to stand up to the Final Boss, an Enemy Within personifying his fear.

• Jossed

If not that, the Big Bad will be a Knight of Cerebus to contrast with Oleander and Dr. Loboto.

Perhaps either a ruthless psychic super villain or an Eldritch Abomination from the depths of the Collective Unconscious.

• Confirmed. Maligula was a psychic Serial Killer, though she appears to be long dead by the time the game takes place, the actual Big Bad directing events in the game seems obsessed with resurrecting her, so she's more a Greater-Scope Villain in the story.

Lili will be revealed to be a much stronger psychic than we think

In Psychonauts, Coach Oleander refers to Lili's brain as "strong enough to power an entire army of Psychoblaster death tanks!" and while held captive by Loboto, Lili manages to nearly set him on fire through psychically-blocking restraints. And in Rhombus of Ruin, despite being under the effects of Psilirium, she gives an impressive show of pyrokinesis before focusing her energy on Raz. All this is building up to revealing in Psychonauts 2, when she is finally not held back by anything, that Lili is a very powerful psychic.

The contents of Truman Zanotto's briefcase

Seen in Rhombus of Ruin, and thus far in a poster of Psychonauts 2 by Scott C., is a metal briefcase handcuffed to Truman's wrist.

So, what's in it? Most likely someone very important's brain. Because Psychonauts.

• Confirmed. It's Truman's brain.

Raz will learn necromancy

Raz will express discomfort with the practice of necromancy because of its capabilities to bring back evil from the dead (like the family that cursed his) but will eventually be forced to learn it himself to save the day.

• Jossed.

Oleander will be revealed to have been used as an Unwitting Pawn in the original game.

Is it coincidental that Dr. Loboto was helping the mastermind behind Truman's kidnapping?

Raz will gain a psychic power that lets him manipulate or even freely move through water.

The irony of this will be commented on by Raz and Ford.

• It is possible the hand of Galochio is the sign of innate hydrokinesis working against Raz for whatever reason instead of for him.
  • He doesn't get it in the game, but after defeating the final boss, the hand does help him get back onto solid ground. So maybe...?

Ford will be revealed to have committed some act(s) of evil before the shattering of his mind.

In the first official trailer for the game, Ford gravely tells Raz in voice-over that "some brains are better off... broken." Ford feels he deserved to have his psyche broken, because he knows the kind of person he was before it happened, and it wasn't a good one.

• Alternatively but along a similar line these acts might be a problem not because of evil so much as ego. By most peoples descriptions Ford was the best leader the Psychonauts ever had and incredibly gifted, that might have gone to his head. His ego driven behavior then ultimately lead him to the psychic duel that shattered his mind.
• Semi-Confirmed: Ford's "act of evil" is really just a morally-black thing he had to do for the greater good, sealing away Maligula within her host body and making her forget who she was, then using the same technique to spin a story of a fortune teller's curse to keep her family away from water to avoid her ever resurfacing. He shattered his mind afterwards both to hide this fact and out of guilt for having performed it.

The new Psychonaut leaders research into necromancy and the Galochio curse will be connected.

Augustus Aquato had an affair with a woman from the Galochio family who was due to be married. The Galochios confronted him and the argument led to an accident where Augustuses powers somehow drowned the woman and the rest of the Galochios. In retaliation the Galochios put a curse on the Aquatos before they died, the "curse" actually being an implanted aquakinesis power combined with a posthipnotic suggestion, whenever the Aquatos see a body of water the aquakinesis power tries to drown them. As for the new head of the psychonauts necromancy research, he was the one who the Galochio girl was going to marry before she died and he wants her back.

• Jossed with RoR, At the end when Raz is tied up he sees a hand coming for him but jumping into anyone else's head shows nothing. In fact everyone else seems confused by it. So there's no physical hand actually being controlled at the very least.
• Semi-Confirmed: A mole is trying to resurrect a psychic Serial Killer who is responsible for Raz's curse, but the Necromancy is a red herring.

Predictions for the mental worlds that will appear in Psychonauts 2

• A Lightmare Fuel horror-movie parody level that takes place in a suburban neighborhood where it's Always Night that belongs to a Black Comedy Ax-Crazy serial killer.
• A beautiful & idyllic arcadian Sugar Bowl fantasy land with a focus on solving puzzles instead of combat that belongs to a Loon with a Heart of Gold character with an overly vivid imagination who ignores reality in favor of his own fantasy land.
• A nightmarish Sucky School with Barbaric Bully and Jerk Jock enemies that belongs to a Cowardly Lion Nerd.
• The set for an incredibly annoying and unfunny Show Within a Show sitcom, that is born from the unpleasant memories of said show of an otherwise Mellow Fellow Nice Guy, who is forced to play the role of the Designated Monkey despite being understandably upset about being in an Ironic Hell, the goal of this level would be to ruin scenes without getting caught in various ways, like stealing a prop, or making one of the actors unable to be on set.
• A toy land based around the repressed memories of a miserable child too scared to face reality. The level could revolve around trying to fight back the nightmares taking the form of demonic or possessed toys.
• A version of the Motherlobe were every single person is hostile, reflecting the fear of the mole inside the organisation and that nobody can be trusted.
• A twisted retelling of the battle between Ford Cruller, the Psychic Six and Maligula.
  • Most are Jossed, but the last one is semi-Comfirmed - Fatherland Folicies does include the mole's own twisted retelling of the story of the fight between Ford and Maligula.

Razputin will find a way to break the Aquato family curse.

• Whoever the woman in the water is, they have some form of connection to the Galochios who cursed the Aquato family line in the first place. It’s possible that after Raz fights her, he will find out how to break the curse and be rid of the Hand of Galochio forever.
  • Confirmed... In a way.

One level will be an Extranormal Prison.

With there being a "market" of supernatural threats that would warrant the creation and maintenance of the Psychonauts, it is likely that the Psychonauts have their own series of cells designed to inhibit psychic powers and other such supernatural abilities. If Whispering Rocks has such things available for children, you know that the Psychonauts will have them for supercriminals somewhere near Headquarters so that their agents can keep a close eye on them.

Safe bet that there would be a Prison Riot orchestrated by the Big Bad and Raz and co. will be In Prison with the Rogues, needing to fight their way out.

• Jossed. All levels, outside of the Motherlobe and the area surrounding it, are mental worlds.

Jack Black plays a former Psychonaut.

In one of the Psychonauts 2 Trailers, one of the mental worlds is set within the disembodied brain kept in-storage. Raz has to "wake" it by traveling through its mind, manifesting as a psychedelic, Swinging-Sixties style world where Raz learns the ability to slow down time.

Considering the plot involves Raz hunting for potential traitors within the Psychonauts, it is likely that whoever Jack Black is playing, he was a powerful psychic who learned how to alter time with his mind and the psychonauts kept his brain as a precaution. It is likely that the kind of criminal element the Psychonauts are hired to hunt down would try to milk the minds of their agents and so they would have their agents either kept around in secure facilities upon retirement or would have their brains stored away after death. Ford Cruller happened to have super-sneezing powder on him in the first game and there is a standard procedure in recranializing people, so it is likely that super-sneezing powder is a regularly used resource for the Psychonauts long before Oleander and Dr. Loboto started using it.

Extra points if he learned how to do this by partaking in mind-altering narcotics. The government experimenting on people with LSD really did happen after all, so imagine what it could do to people so intimately familiar with the astral plane as the Psychonauts. This could also be why the closest thing we see to the mind's owner is a giant eyeball monster, his sense of self having been warped so thoroughly by his experiences that his astral projection doesn't look human anymore.

• Confirmed: he is voicing Helmut Fullbear

Necromancy and the limits there of will be a major plot point.

Specifically the reason for the curse on the Aquato family is that a member foolishly tried to bring a very powerful psyhic back from the dead. They only managed to do it halfway through trapping the person in a state between life and death which lead to the family being cursed. Given the Psychonauts have recently renewed research into the practice it will have attracted this persons attention.

• Jossed. The necromancy plot point ultimately ends up being a Red Herring.

Maligula is actually Lucrecia Mux.

Despite being featured in the campfire pit photos like the other famous Psychonauts set to appear, there is little to no mention of Lucrecia compared to everyone else, to the point that a mural that depicts them seems to intentionally cover up her photo. My guess is some sort of incident in the past transformed her into the horrible beast, since the facial features between the two are pretty similar and they even have the same voice actress, and the Psychonauts are now covering her up at all costs. Perhaps the mole’s involvement is less out of just trying to take over the world or something and more out of of being a close friend or even love interest for Lucrecia and wanting to save her/bring her back, especially after being disgruntled with the Psychonauts treatment of her.

• Half-confirmed, half-jossed. Maligula was/is indeed Lucrecia Mux. However, the mole’s plans are nowhere as well-intentioned as this WMG theorises

The Mole at Psychonauts HQ trying to bring Maligula back to life is Ford Cruller.

Ford wants to resurrect her so that he can a) somehow cure himself of his Split Personality, and b) remove Raz's family's curse. When she's resurrected, Ford will send Raz into her mind to cure her.

• Semi-confirmed. Ford is not the Mole, but he doesn't object much to Raz semi-curing him of his shattered mind on Truman's orders and wants to resurrect Maligula to cure Raz's family "curse" — but he only wants to bring her back so she can be shoved back into a primal part of the mind, freeing her host mind from her influence forever.

Related to the above The Mole at Psychonauts HQ trying to bring Maligula back to life is one of Ford Cruller's personalities.

Ford had far more of a connection to Maligula than most people would expect and deeply regrets having to kill her. Over time to desire to undo his mistake grew into an insane obsession of this personality to revive her from the dead at all costs.

• Jossed.

Maligula is Lili's mother.

So far, we know next to nothing about her. If Maligula really is Lucrecia Mux as guessed above, then perhaps she had Lili before going nuts for some reason. It's likely something Truman doesn't like to talk about, but will be revealed somewhere near the end of the game.

• Has to be Jossed. The timeline doesn't match up. Maligula was killed 20yrs ago, and Lili is maybe 12yrs old?
  • Totally Jossed.

Raz will help "Brain in a Jar" rediscover each of the five senses

Raz will help the Brain in a Jar learn to see, touch, taste, hear and smell, as they travel around the "Feel Machine". Note the visual representations of eyes in one section of the "Feelings" video, then ears, then tongues and a hand.

• Confirmed.

Maligula will be 'resurrected' as the final boss, but not actually brought back to life directly

When discussing the idea of the Delugeionaries bringing back Maligula to life, Sasha scoffs at the scientific impossibility of resurrecting the dead, and Mila instead brings up how she's more afraid of the 'idea' of Maligula continuing to motivate her followers long after her physical demise. Combined with the fact that the first boss of the game is a 'bad idea' that Raz created, its likely that the delugeionary mole's grand plan to resurrect Maligula will combine the two ideas — Maligula herself won't actually be resurrected, but the Mole's plan is to create an 'idea' of Malugula, a psychic projection of her character and personality drawn from the minds of those who knew her in life, so as to create a 'copy' of her that's close to the real deal, in a similar example to Mal from Inception. To that end, the mole's overall plan likely involves tracking down those who fought her in life so as to draw on their memories and interpretations of Maligula from within their minds to create the Maligula projection, hence why a sub-plot of the game will be Raz encountering the members of the Psychic 6 and helping each of them deal with the issues they had from fighting the psychotic Psychic and the devastation she wrought. Accordingly, the Mole's plan will succeed, but Raz will do a Battle in the Centre of the Mind with the copy as the Final Boss, which, given she's the mind he's fighting against, and inside, will result in a more twisted and chaotic final level than the infamous Meat Circus, due to 'Maligula's' incomplete mental state from being a copy-pasted version of the real deal.

• Alternatively, It's possible that fighting Maligula left each of the psychic 6 with literal mental scars from facing her- deep and sharp impression of maligula's mind from clashing so deeply with her psyche, leaving lingering elements of her consciousness- or their interpretation of her mental state- within their mind and memories of her. The one who has the greatest amount of this is Ford Cruller, which contributes to his shattered mental state and Split Personality, which is why luring him out is crucial to the mole's plan, so they can journey within his twisted mental world and rip out the parts of Maligula's mind that remain behind as psychic echos still tormenting Ford. Accordingly, whilst they'll succeed in drawing out the bad parts, in the aftermath it'll turn out that doing so actually somewhat helped Ford's shattered mental state, as his personalities begin fusing and overlapping, though he'll still require aid to avoid a complete mental breakdown in the immediate term.
  • Jossed. Maligula/Lucrecia is revealed to be Not Quite Dead.

The Mole's Identity

• The true identity of the Mole within the Psychonauts is Truman Zanotto... or rather, whomever's inside his body right now. The first Game had an off-hand comment about the photographs on the brain jars helping to tell which brain goes in which body to avoid complications with people waking up in the wrong body. Truman's behavior upon being rescued seems odd. He acts like he's hurt or needing care when being escorted into the motherlode, but reveals himself to be awake and aware of his surroundings when alone with Raz, not even showing this to his own daughter, who is distraught at him apparently being damaged and unresponsive in front of her. Upon waking up his only request to Raz is to get Ford Cruller to help with the Delugionary Mole problem, which seems oddly specific given the Ford is involved in Psychonauts business, but is effectively retired with honours due to his injures and cannot sustain his mind away from the whispering Rock summer camp. Furthermore, he shows confusion at Raz stating he'll be able to contact Cruller if he can get a piece of bacon, when any long-term friend of Ford's should know his utter love of the stuff. It's entirely possible the kidnapping was merely a pretense to swap Truman and the Mole's brains to allow him to infiltrate the Psychonauts at the highest level, distracting and sowing confusion amongst the lower ranks as to who the actual mole could be, when nobody's looking at the 'victim' himself. Furthermore, him only requesting aid from Raz could be less to do with him not knowing who to trust and more the mole relying on the fact that Raz doesn't know Truman well enough to know when something's suspicious in his behaviour. His shock at Lili revealing Raz is her boyfriend could be less to do with Truman's darling girl having a boyfriend and more the mole getting surprised at an unexpected complication in his plans, given how thoroughly he must have planned out and prepared to Body Surf into Truman to enact his plan, only to discover that there's an unforeseen complication thrown in at the last minute, with Truman's daughter having a powerful psychic boyfriend he wasn't expecting to meet. Him dramatically springing to life at the end of ROR could be the mole's true reaction to the news, and him forgetting he needs to play Truman as being sickly and confused in the aftermath of his kidnapping.
• Related to this theory inside Truman Zanotto's briefcase is the real brain of Truman Zanotto.
• Alternatively, the mole's motivation is to obtain what they can't get from the Psychonauts, and is outright banned in practice - the secrets of Necromancy - specifically, How To Resurrect 12 Kids From Their Ashes 101. Right, Milla?
• Adam the intern is the mole. Why? He seems to be the nicest and most helpful of the interns and the most familiar with the history of the Psychonauts. If you're going to go for a dramatic reveal on who the mole is, its probably going to be the one you least suspect.
• Or it could possibly be Nick from the mail room. His body was delivered brainless which could be used to give the psychonauts a distraction, get the heat off of himself, and allow him to move around HQ unsuspected before getting mailed. If Nick had put his brain into Truman’s body then this would also work spectacularly to keep himself from being found out. Not to mention the cover as an incredibly likeable guy who’s not even psychic wouldn’t really be pegged as a traitor.
  • The mole is Nick, who had Loboto put his brain in Truman’s body.

The alcohol level

Okay, so we have four members of the Psychic Six with playable minds: Helmut, Cassie, Compton, and Ford. At this point, it would seem likely there is a mental world for every member. The wiki mentions a major clue to it being Truman Zanotto's mind, but what if instead it belonged to Bob Zanotto, his uncle and another founder? Perhaps there was some incident between the two, involving the Psychonauts, that pushed him (or even both of them) to drink? Also, they are both important members of the organization, so this could embolden any problems the two had with each other.

• Semi-confirmed: It is Bob's mind, but the cause seems to be his grief over losing his parents and Helmut — and the respect of Lili.

Nightmares get to show up more.

...We get to fight Nightmares more often in this game - both in the real world and in the mental worlds.

• Sadly, the only Nightmare we get to see is an Anti-Climax Boss of a Nightmare Maligula, so this is Jossed.

Maligula is a far more tragic villain than it seems at the beginning.

All the previous main villains had far more to them than just being evil and Maligula will be no exception. There was a time where she wanted to do the right thing but ultimately she was droven insane and the founding members of the Psychonauts were forced to put her down. Not the intensity of the battle but WHO they had to kill did break them.

• Somewhat confirmed, given the fact that Ford had a thing for Lucy, who was the one who became Maligula.

Maligula is not actually dead.

In the Story Overview trailer it is said that she is believed to be dead for many years and relatively soon the game reveals that her grave is empty. She managed to fake her death and layed low ever since. Only the activities of The Mole to bring her back to life will ultimately force her to reveal herself.

• Since the mastermind is so obsessed with her, they will barely recognise the real deal compared to the "ideal" idea of Maligula they were chasing.
• Maligula might hide out in plain sight as Nona (Raz's grandmother) since her face structure is very similar, her thick clothes hide her possibly much thinner body shape and not unlike Maligula she has a lot of hair, done up in an almost tornado-like hair style. Plus, considering how the other Psychic Six look like, she has about the right age to be a 20 years older version of Maligula.
  • Confirmed - she's actually part of Nona/Lucrecia’s psyche.

Otto Mentallis will be revealed to be the least likeable member of the Psychic Six.

He is the least broken after the battle against Maligula because unlike the others he feels the least guilty about being responsible for her death.

• Jossed. He's portrayed as nice, if a tool and his lack of being broken is simply due to healthy coping mechanisms.
• Confirmed, in that none of the Psychic Six are fond of him.

Maligula is not her real name.

She was not named by her parents with this incredibly evil sounding name but it was a label put upon her by her enemies. Her real name will be far more normal, at least in the world of the Psychonauts.

• Confirmed. It’s a name that the citizens of Grulovia gave her.

Maligula is related to either Lili or Raz.

She could possibly be either Lili's grandmother (the one who originally owned the music box that plays a role in Rhombus of Ruin) or a ancestor of Raz. Unable to overpower her, the Psychonauts found a way to turn her mastery of water against her, which ultimately went far too well and became the curse that threatens every single member of her family, including Raz.

• Confirmed. Lucrecia/Maligula is Raz’s great aunt, but was made to believe she was actually Raz's grandmother.

Lili will team up with Raz in at least one big battle.

When it is time to take down the one responsible for her father's situation she will not stand at the sideline.

• While they don't work together in a fight, she does help him out during one of the final brains.

One gag will turn out to be important later on: The running gag of Lili punching Raz in the arm.

She will have to prove her identity at one point or give Raz a Trust Password.

• Jossed.

The Abandoned Psitanium Mine will be a part of the plan of the Big Bad.

As part of the necromancy ritual the main antagonist will need a large sum of Psitanium.

• Jossed.

The giant firebreathing plant monster that was shown in the trailers will be a boss in the minds of a member of the Zanotto family.

After all Herbaphony (talking to plants) and Pyrokinesis (setting stuff on fire) are both Lili's specialities.

• Confirmed. It's a metaphorical representation of Bob Zanatto's pain at being fired from the Psychonauts by Truman Zannato, his own nephew.

The one who hired Dr. Loboto will turn out to be Otto Mentallis.

If you take a look at the distorted image we see of this mysterious person for the few moments he is visible in Dr. Loboto's mind, his head seems to be placed in a big round machine (possibly with Psitanium crystals around it) and his voice sounds distorted by technology and who is the expert of technology for the Psychonauts?

• Unanswered. Nick captured and tortured Loboto, but who actually hired him?

At least one of the main characters will be revealed to belong to the Galochios

They did change their name to hide their identity into something different like Zanotto.

• Alternatively, there is one intern who also has Hydrokinesis abilities: Lizzie and we don't even know her (and by extension Norma's) family name.
  • It's actually Raz and his family who are related to the Galochios.

The curse on the Aquato family will be undone by a member of the Galochios during or after the endgame.

After learning the history and the reason behind the curse, the still living members of both family will join together and manage to finally break the curse for good. It would make a good finale for a game about recovery and growth.

• Jossed, because they were never behind the curse in the first place.
  • It's actually partially confirmed. The "curse" was the product of Ford attempting to prevent Lucrecia/Nona from reawakening the Maligula personality, and a conversation between Frazie and Mirtala post-game confirms that both Lucrecia and Marona were born Galochios. The Hand of Galochio helping Raz out of the water near the end of the game could potentially be taken as Lucrecia/Nona metaphorically lifting the so-called "curse".

Nick Johnsmith got debrained because...

• His empty body was meant to be a way for The Mole to escape by transplanting their brain into a body nobody would suspect.
• He saw something in the mail room he shouldn't have.
• He was used to lure the Psychonauts to the Lady Luctopus casino, to keep them away from the Motherlobe while The Mole can be more active there with the best Psychonauts being busy elsewhere.
• All Jossed. Nick is The Mole.

Raz's grandmother will turn out to be much more important than she seems to be at first

She will turn out to know the most about what happened to the family (especially with the curse) in Grulovia.

• She is also suspiciously absent on the group shot that shows Raz and the rest of his family looking worried at something.
  • Confirmed. She’s actually Lucrecia Mux/Maligula.

More people will be debrained over the course of the game.

Because it will be funny to hear quite a few of the serious and/or smug people to drone on about TV. Also it allows The Mole to take out powerful Psychonauts without killing them.

• Jossed. In fact, the only one who appeared to have been debrained in the game had done so as part of his plan as The Mole.

Similar to the first game there will be a point in the story where you can decide the order in which you tackle a few brains.

You will be able to choose in which order you do the brains of a few members of the Psychic 6.

• An interesting twist on this, as you can tackle each aspect of Ford's shattered mind in whatever order you want to, of which two of the aspects requires you to help other members of the Psychic 6 in order to access that part of Ford's mind. Afterwards, you can choose the order of how you do the two remaining members of the Psychic 6 with mental issues.

The Mole will attempt to frame Lili

.At the end of the Lady Luctopus casino Raz finds a Room Full of Crazy that apparently belongs to the Big Bad and contains a picture of Lili with some notes listing her advantages like having full access to the Motherlobe, trouble with her father and a certain dislike of the Psychonauts and no disadvantages, implying she might be the mole. At a later point it will be revealed that the picture was either left behind because Lili was only considered but ultimately another person was chosen or because it was meant to indicate who will be the Fall Guy for the plans of the real mole.

• Jossed.

Lili's ability to talk to plants will finally be useful.

Despite being a rare psychic ability, it was utterly useless in the previous two games. This time she will finally be able to use it to help Raz.

• While psychobotany does end up needed to progress to a later point in the game, it's actually Bob Zanotto, not Lili, that uses it to help Raz.

The order of Dr. Loboto's boss refers to a brain.

Dr. Loboto is told: "You put the egg in the basket and the old egg in the box and the box in the ocean." In the first game the term egg was used to refer to brains by the Big Bad. This order seems to be about placing a brain somewhere and hiding another brain in a certain location.

• Confirmed. It’s actually orders for what Loboto is supposed to do with Truman's brain, the 'Old Egg', though it seems like the 'ocean' part is apparently meant to be taken very literally, since the mastermind had no real need to keep Truman's brain once he'd switched places with him.

Each boss will be themed after one of the typical mental enemies

Currently Known Bosses:

• Lady Luctopus' main attack is spitting out lightbulb bombs, which are the same attacks the Bad Ideas. Fitting, considering she's the creation of a (fabricated) Insane Troll Logic belief that "risking everything always pays off", so she risks her own demise by throwing out the one weapon that can harm her, a bad idea if there ever was one. Throwing said ideas-as-lightbulbs at her open sockets causes her to short-circuit, because putting the [[Pun string]] of bad ideas together into a plan forces her to realize she Did Not Think This Through, and as a Bad Idea Herself, causes her to shut down until she can justify her own stupidity.
• The Paranoid Brain's boss is a Panic Attack, since that's what Raz has been doing to him by invading his mind after he's been closed off since the 70's. It's reactive, aggressive, and downright flashy.
  • Actually, that's just a mini-boss. The real boss is a Nightmare of Maligula, which turns out to be more of an Anti-Climax Boss.

Possibly:

• Ford Cruller's mind has a giant puppet that drops heavy objects onto an unstable flooring, similar to the Regrets dropping anvils on invaders.
  • Jossed - Ford doesn't have a boss for his mind.
    • Though, coincidentally, the bosses of Compton's mind are Ford, Hollis, and Otto as animal hand puppets.
• Maligula herself is a personal demon, but one that spits out tiny personal demons made of water balloons filled with caustic acid. As befitting her psychopathic personality, she'll attempt a Taking You with Me if Raz almost wins, threatening to blow herself up and drown Raz in insanity. The only way to stop her is by forcing her to feel the one emotion she's never had in her life - specifically, a million-ton weight of regret crashing down on her boss form.
  • Also Jossed - she uses water to attack, and her final phase sees the return of Giant Raz.

The reason some of Raz' powers aren't as strong or are totally absent is because of both Psilirium poisoning and a lack of strong Psitanium deposits

The events of both leaving Whispering Rock and the Psilirium poisoning from Rhombus of Ruin are what caused this weird case of mental Bag of Spilling. The psychic dulling effects of the Psilirium caused him to forget or become unable to use Invisibility and Confusion, also weakening his remaining abilities.

However, more importantly, a lack of the massive, psychic enhancing Psitanium deposit like Whispering Rock means he lacks his normal oomph with his remaining abilities, too. This is why his Slam no longer creates a large shockwave, why he can't ignite things from a larger distance, why his Psi Blasts have a cool down rather than the 'larger clip' of his ammo and seem to have a slower firing rate, and why he can't drift indefinitely with his Telekinesis.

• So basically he was going around the original game with the psychic equivalent of training wheels, and now he's having to go through the second game purely on his own power.
  • Jossed. The idea that anyone other than Truman has Psilirium poisoning is never even mentioned again, and the Psitanium deposits around the Motherlobe are actually mentioned to be more potent than the ones at Whispering Rock (in an attempt to justify why you can no longer slaughter the local wildlife).

Cassie O'Pia is not Cassie's birth name.

Her birth name is much more Chinese. 'Cassie' is a pen name her author archetype came up with. She considers it to be her name now though, since everyone else knows her by it.

There will be DLC addressing some dangling plot hooks.

We haven't visited Otto Mentalis' mind, the Aquatos have some personal hangups they need to get over, Lili and Truman Zanatto might warrant a glance, and boy does Raz need therapy. Even if it doesn't happen instantly, there's more than enough story potential and loyal fans who'd buy it for such a thing to happen. The Collective Unconscious in this game is also a big open floating space, so aside from new mental worlds and various doors floating in the middle of nowhere, all that's really needed are new Psi-portal cutscenes and triggers...

All that said, it'll probably not be for a while.

Loboto has a pet goat he left at the camp.

Psychonauts 2 has an odd fascination with goats, at least in the real world. You see them everywhere in the quarry, one appears in a loading screen and they even appears in other random places. So when Loboto mentions how he left his kid back at the camp, while making his escape from the Motherlobe, he's referring to a goat child. You know, since a kid is another term for a baby/young goat.

There is more than one mole in the Psychonauts.

The story overall puts Gristol Malik, aka Nick Johnsmith the Mail Guy, as The Mole and overall Big Bad, which seems to fit well enough given all the details mentioned. HOWEVER, there are still several things that have gone unmentioned. Namely, why did Loboto say that his superior wanted Raz' brain back in the Rhombus of Ruin, when Gristol Malik was clearly uninterested and arguably didn't even seem to be all that aware of Raz' power and brain potential given his true goal of reviving Maligula? Additionally, there's plenty of moments where it's pretty clear that for all of his cleverness in his plan, Gristol was oftentimes so lacking in sense in the long term nature of his plan, and frankly only made it as far as he did just because no one even noticed him, but even then it seems too convenient how he somehow knew the process needed to get himself into Truman's mind, yet somehow was incredibly lacking in even the basic knowledge of Psychonaut technology and terminology. You'd think SOMEONE would have noticed when he was being hired/before he "infiltrated" the organization...unless...

...Unless he had help from within. Someone who was already embedded into the Psychonauts, and would know all of these details and provided him cover that, due to his egomania and self-absorbed narcissism, he would never even consider that he was only a pawn in someone else's schemes. Someone who would be interested in Razputin's brain on a personal level, or would possibly have enough of a connection to Maligula to know her true identity, and by proxy her relation to Razputin enough to make him a point of interest. Someone who would be willing to use Gristol's scheme to their advantage in order to put themselves into a position where they could have access to Raz without arousing suspicion.

• It's GOT to be Otto, right? Clairvoyance shows he sees Raz as another brain in a jar for his Brainframe, he has a Brainframe in general with it written into contracts he gets everyone's brains upon death for experimentation, and he's the only mind of the Psychic 6 not entered at any point. He seems to be the only one not very broken up by what happened with Lucy or opening up all his mental doors in the old days; maybe he just coped better but who knows? When he shows up in his friends' minds they usually take a dim view on him or dislike him outright. I think the only exception is Helmut who has been out of the loop for 20 years and would naturally idealize the good times. Otto being involved would go a long way to explain how non-psychic Gristol managed to put apparently-psychic blocks in Loboto's mind to prevent snitching, or achieve anything at all with his lack of common sense. Psychic reconstruction by Otto could also explain why Gristol's mind is simply a curated Disney-esque propaganda ride in a black void. Just like how Ford's mental construct for Lucy post-Astralathe was a cheap flea circus in a black void. Even Loboto's mind has a skybox, when he sees everything as revolving around dentistry. If anything it feels like Gristol was meant to be a fakeout villain, with it being revealed Otto used him to do the legwork of a big plan he had while keeping suspicion off himself, and Double Fine ran out of time to develop it or something. Maybe in an expansion pack?
  • Taking this into consideration, it's possible that Theodore Malik DIDN'T know that Maligula was somehow alive, but it was an idea that might have been implanted inside of Gristol's head by Otto. After all, if his mental world was a construct ala Ford's Flea Circus for Nona (granted made to delude himself, since we can see bits and pieces of the truth about Grulovia peeking through here and there), what's stopping Otto from simply planting an extra idea into Gristol's head about Maligula's continued existence that wouldn't arouse any suspicions from Gristol, since he's already so self-servingly delusional that it would fit in just fine?

Otto will be the Big Bad of Psychonauts 3

The Psychic 6/7 are ambivalent about him, he's a bit too upbeat, a Mad Scientist, a nihilist ("we're all going to be a Brain in a Jar someday"), and a bit too detached. In fact, who says he "accidentally" turned Lucrecia into Maligula? In addition, he sees Raz as a future experiment when Clairvoyance is used on him — and Rhombus of Ruin made it clear someone hired Loboto to steal Raz's brain. Also, in the post game he mentions the possibility of mass producing his Astralathe for the psychic community, the very device that created Maligula in the first place, which could make for a good future storyline, and when his section of the psychic 7 mural is examines, Raz notes that Otto's the only one of the Psychic 7 that he didn't get to mentally visit, perhaps foreshadowing to a future sequel.

• Alternatively, there will be a fresh-faced Big Bad who Otto will serve as The Dragon for. Baddie will have conned Otto into sharing his inventions and knowledge with them to get an Evil Plan off the ground. Otto, with his "interesting" morals, doesn't understand why the scheme is a bad thing. Once Raz has a run through his mind and makes Otto see sense, the mad scientist will become determined to fix what he has helped break.

Clem and Crystal were inspired by Maligula and/or Delugionists.

Crystal was Grulovian and thought Maligula could help people come back from death and become stronger, and convinced Clem of it.

Sam is a Big Sister Bully to Dogen.

Given how badly she treats animals and Raz, there's no way she isn't also abusive to her brother.

Cassie has a severe anxiety disorder, not DID

The "split personality" element of her habit of compartmentalizing is a red herring. What she's chiefly struggling with is anxiety - perhaps something in the vicinity of OCD. She's thrown herself entirely into beekeeping, at the expense of all other aspects of her life - her work, her writing, her friends - because it's the one area where she feels confident she can maintain control and order in a chaotic world. She's become irrationally attached to the idea that, if she keeps the beehives maintained, Ford will return and fix everything that's gone wrong around her. Her other selves in her mental world aren't dissociative identities - they're her other skills and interests, that have been suppressed by her anxiety-induced need for order and familiarity.

• This is pretty much outright stated by Cassie when she explains the power she gives you and when the four Cassies reunite. Each of her "selves" is just a part of her. They're not separate identities, just different hats she wears based on the needs of the moment, similar to how other people change over time as they age and their situations change.

The Aquatos will have a new baby in Psychonauts 3

It will be a girl named Marona, most likely named so by Razputin.

Hollis Forsythe has fertility problems

This is almost pure supposition, but still. Forsythe seems to like kids when not stressed out, being one of the people that teaches them and having moments of warmth with Raz from act II onward. It's further implied she has a husband. Children of her own, however, are not mentioned. She's also under a lot of stress from several bad thought processes she's developed, and stress negatively impacts fertility. Lastly, the maternity ward in Hollis's Hot Streak is set up as a roulette wheel that always comes up zero. That feels a little pessimistic compared to the other wards.

Dogen and Sam do not have a good relationship with their mother.

In the first game's cutscene, the camera cuts to Dogen when Raz quotes "your mother is afraid of you" from the pamphlet. Sam mentions that she learned to cook pancakes from "prison", but then backtracks and said that she learned from her mother.

With each game being darker than the last, in Psychonauts 3 a major character will die.

Most likely either Augustus, Truman, or Ford.

The scene of Maligula saving The Mole from invaders happened early.

Lucy did not start out evil, so her transition to a psychic attack dog of sorts would likely have happened gradually. What better way for the Gzar to start getting his hooks into her than for her to do something relatively understandable for the Maliks? As a Grulovian, she might have seen it as her patriotic duty to protect her homeland and the Gzar's son from invaders. Gzar Malik saw her power, decided it would be useful, and made a big deal of the incident, declaring her a Grulovian heroine/official protector of the royal family. The rest is (very nasty) history.

Oleander has a crush on Dr. Loboto.

After the player opens the Astral Lanes, Oleander can be found there, drinking and looking over his peaceful death machine plans. One of his idle lines involves him looking at the blueprint and saying something along the lines of "We could have been an amazing couple". The only character he was previously involved with was Loboto, who helped him with his plot to take over the world.

• Though he is probably more likely to be talking about the death machine itself given he was forbidden from building it.

Nona will teach Raz how to control his Hydrokenisis

More or less self-explanatory. If there's a future game, or a DLC that adds more Psi Powers somehow, one of them will be hydrokinesis and it will be taught by Nona.

Necromancy does not exist, but ghosts do

In the future Raz may encounter the restless spirits of psychics who are unable to pass due to a mental attachment to the physical world via their emotions and feeling they have unfinished business. It will be up to Raz to help them pass on. Sasha may also encounter them and be driven up the wall by the fact the undead do exist in some form.

Hollis Forsythe actually always had some form of issue with gambling

Exactly What It Saysonthe Tin. It might not have been a full addiction, but she always had some kind of mental hang up regarding gambling she was able to keep handled. Raz still messed up by linking "risk" and "money", but it only got SO bad because it was Hollis's mind.

Psychonauts 3 will open with the rescue of Helmut's body

The player will immediately find Raz and the Psychonauts on a mission in Grulovia, and go through the tutorial while recovering Helmut from the frozen lake. Then there will be a timeskip of a few months, during which Helmut has been in recovery, so he can take an active part in the story.

• The first mission may even involve a series first for swimming and underwater levels.

Psychics as powerful as Maligula once nearly destroyed the world.

Its revealed early on that Maligula used her hydrokinesis to flood all of Grulovia, killing countless thousands of innocents. If a psychic is powerful enough to cause a nation wide flood,even if initially by accident, then imagine what destruction a psychic with geomancy and gyrokinesis could do. This could explain why people both hate and fear psychics, because the extent of their powers can be apocalyptic and we can seen the aftermath of such powerful psychics via the world map Sasha brings up as the beginning of the game. The world has forever been changed by such psychics and cause the world to rebuild many times over the course of its history.

Although we know Maligula's psychic powers were artificially augmented and boosted by The Psychic Six, psychics as powerful as Maligula do naturally exist although they're rare. Razputin is one of them. Razputin is easily able to pick up new psychic powers over the course of three games, where as most other psychics his age or older barely demonstrate the basics of their psychic abilities. It's likely in possible future instalments that we may learn more about these types of psychics.

At one point, Raz will fight a villain who followed a similar path by completing Whispering Rock Summer Camp and the Intern Program, but a troubled journey causes them to turn into a villain who needs reforming.

Their journey mirrored Raz's but diverged at multiple points like when bullying and hazing led them down a different path. They abuse their Mental Connection talents for their own ends, and naturally decided to use the other advanced abilities for their schemes. They may prove so formidable that Maligula may have to return in a reformed heroic role to help level the playing field (and also providing further resolution to the Maligula storyline).

• To resolve plot holes like Remember the New Guy?, a plot point could be made where they successfully made it so the Psychonauts have great difficulty remembering that this person even exists, and what they do recall is a Red Herring about unremarkable Psychonaut who is barely worth mentioning. Their subtlety was so formidable that nobody suspected something was amiss.

Compton loves to cook.

Compton's level was based on an old cooking show when it could have been just about any kind of gameshow and he represented taste in Helmet's mind. Sam's cooking of pancakes is just a case of it running in the family.

Nightmares can evolve and change form.

In the first game, past trauma and fears are represented by these multi-armed, gas-mask-wearing monstrosities that are fought twice in the same level. These demonic creatures are just the base form.

Donatella's family are fortunetellers.

Raz's mother is more prejudiced against psychics than her husband despite not being a target for the Aquato curse. An explanation for this is she had reason to prefer acrobats to psychics before she married Augustus. Donatella was born to circus performers, fortunetellers. Sadly, whether they were Phony Psychics or Not so Phony Psychics, Donatella's relatives were thieves and liars. Distaste for how dishonestly her parents lived poisoned Donatella against psychics, which drove her to trade her act for that of an acrobat.

Gristol Malik is a puppet king to a powerful rogue psychic who is akin to Yuri from Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2.

Not to diminish Gristol's accomplishment of successfully infiltrating the Motherlobe however. There was a WMG about the Psychonauts taking place in the Red Alert universe so this follows that idea in concept. Perhaps Gristol was being toyed with by a psychic Evil Chancellor who hopes to Take Over the World with his own Evil Counterpart psychic army, much like Yuri's scheme in Red Alert 2.

• For extra fun, Udo Kier could voice the character and have nods to Yuri.
• They may even be an Aquato family member who contributed to the dislike of psychics and whose defeat/reformation will resolve these old wounds once and for all. The gravity of the situation may require the Aquatos to train as full psychics, and have the chance to resolve the old stigma by confronting their rogue family member and thus overcome their dislike of Raz. Maligula may even have a bone to pick with them.
• They may have an old castle in Grulovia that they are using as their hideout like Yuri having a hideout in Transylvania. Possibly this will be a Very Definitely Final Dungeon.

The third party who wanted Raz’s brain in Rhombus Of Ruin will be the Big Bad of either Psychonauts 2 DLC or Psychonauts 3

They may be one of the enemies of Raz’s family or be a rogue member of Raz’s family who was disowned a long time ago. Also as a contrast to Oleander, Lobito, and Maligula, they will be a Complete Monster whom Raz can’t reason with and may even have to kill or give a Fate Worse than Death.

Future mentees in 3

After being AWOL for twenty years, Cassie and Helmut are poised to become active psychonauts again. Part of that is mentoring an intern, which can bring back two prominent Whispering Rock campers.

• Cassie will mentor Dogen. As Compton's best friend, Cassie is experienced with neurotic psychics prone to blowing animals up. Dogen's internship wouldn't be official, since he's too little for the program, so it's mostly just therapy sessions with his Honorary Aunt.
• Helmut will mentor Bobby Zilch. They're similar in love for music, but Bobby is a maladjusted metalhead while Helmut is a pacifistic rocker bursting with joie de vivre. He's just the kind of person who might mellow out Bobby.

Whilst physical necromancy is impossible; mental cloning through other minds might be.

Resurrecting someone is impossible but, with a psychic projecting themselves into another person with astral projection, they can effectively live on in another mind from their own. A psychic implants parts of their psyche into the mind of another person, preferably in another psychic, and overwrites the victim's mind with their own thoughts and memories. The process will effectively kill off the host's conscious mind and allow the invading psychic to effectively clone their mind.

Marona was a psychic, and most proficient in Clairvoyance.

Most of the Psychic Six and Lucy wear clothes that reference the power they're known for. It's probable that Marona, as a Galochio, could use hydrokinesis, but the glasses and bold colors she wore don't bring water to mind. What they can symbolize how she could see the world clearer/more vividly than others. As an advocate for rights of the lower class, it also makes sense that she could see things from others' perspective.

Lucrecia was either prevented from having children by circumstances or was physically unable to have them.

She wanted to have children and later grandchildren, but either 1. Wanted to wait until after the war, which tragically ended up killing her husband later iterrupting her relationship with Ford before they were ready to have any, or 2. She was sadly infertile. This is a significant factor as to why the false memories Ford planted took to her so well, and possibly one of the factors he used to justify the decision to himself.

Bob's sibling was an illegitimate half-sibling he connected with after losing his mother

Bob being Truman's uncle necessitates that he have a sibling, but we see neither hide nor hair of them in any of his childhood memories. While there may be more Occam's Razor-friendly explanations, perhaps what happened was that, before his death, his father had an affair with another woman and fathered a child - it's suggested from his picture that he was in the army, and infidelity in the military is a common trope.

If this were true, it (assuming she found out) would obviously contribute to his mother's decline into alcoholism and parental neglect, having to deal with both the grief of her husband's death and the loss of his loyalty at the same time. It would also contribute to Bob's apparent lack of confidence in the idea of love and marriage before meeting Helmut. While it might seem out-of-character for Bob to reconnect with this half-sibling given they might remind him of his father's actions, it's not inconceivable, especially since we don't have a whole lot of information about what Bob's personality was like between his childhood and marriage - maybe he recognized them as an innocent figure in the whole situation because he knew how it felt to be the victim of a parents' irresponsibility, or maybe he felt inspired to let down his walls after becoming friends with the rest of the Psychic Seven. Maybe it was the birth of Truman himself that brought them together - perhaps his half-sibling sent him letters for a long time with little to no response, but getting a letter with a picture of baby Truman finally inspired him to reach out to the only family he had left.

Hollis and her husband are a Muggle–Mage Romance

This is why he's briefly alluded to in her mind but never brought up in the real world; she's strictly compartmentalized her work and personal life and, with him not being a psychic, mentioning him would just be idle chit-chat she doesn't have time for.

The planet that these games take place on has lower gravity than real-life Earth

We can see a world map in the Motherlobe that's clearly not representative of Earth in real life. Since there's frequent references to both real-life locations and people as well as fictional ones, let's assume it's just a very weird alternate version of Earth, possibly due to the influence of Psitanium. If this planet has weaker gravity than Earth as we know it, it would not only explain why people apparently average eight or nine feet tall, but also why the Aquatos are able to pull off such cartoonishly over-the-top feats of strength and agility - they represent the best of the best in a world where the ceiling is significantly higher.

"Fatherland Follies" is based on a potential pet-project of Gristol's.

In the end the game, you can visit Gristol at the psychoisolation chamber where he can be heard singing the ride's song to himself. This would imply that the song in his head isn't just a representation of his delusions, but something he wrote himself. It's possible that he had a lot of plans for what would happen after he had unleashed Maligula and "reclaimed his throne" (as slim as that would have been). Like, say, create a theme-park meant to enforce a Monarchistic Propaganda Machine, one of the rides telling his "story." Knowing Gristol, one can't help but wonder if he would let the peasantry ride the rides as a tactic to endear himself to the public, make them ride it with the threat of the gulag or if he would only let himself ride it just to stroke his ego every now and again.

Some future titles may experiment with character classes, and maybe even multiple playable characters you can select between with their own missions, quests and stories.

In the case of different characters, this may include different HUD art to get you into how this character sees the world.

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